Without limiting the scope of the invention, its background is described in connection with devices that aid in patient diagnosis, care and treatment.
Modern day decubitus ulcer prevention involves inexact nursing protocols and a variety of questionable products lacking clinically verifiable patient outcomes. This situation is today's reality despite the fact that several hundred thousand cases of decubitus ulcers are reported each year in the United States alone, comprising an estimated $13 billion dollars of associated healthcare costs. Currently, no standardized care protocol has been accepted for ulcer prevention, and nurses are largely left with the physical burden of moving the patient every two hours while visually observing the skin for signs of obvious breakdown.
Alternatively, specialized bed surfaces (i.e., mattresses) are often used that rest on a frame and provide direct patient support over relatively small ranges of motion. Their primary function is to alleviate the pressure commonly found in a patient's head, back, buttocks, and heel areas. To reduce ulcer risk, patient positioning may be performed via a set of hinges, slides, and motorized articulations; enabling poses such as flat, Trendelenburg (normal and reverse), vascular (raised legs), dining/sitting, and upright transitioning. Beyond the various positions defined, bed surfaces are commercially available in a wide range of cost and sophistication (major categories including passive foam/gel mattress; passive multi-chamber fluid/pneumatic systems; open-loop active pneumatics; and closed-loop active pneumatics) that may utilize pressure, displacement and strain sensing technologies to adjust individual chamber pressure. However, the problem with every existing approach lies in the reliance on the nurse to observe signs associated with dead tissue. By the time that the visual degeneration is noticed, substantial tissue death below the skin surface has already occurred. This delayed detection results in decubitus ulcers that, once treated, may take two years to return to original tissue health. As a high-cost and high-volume problem in hospitals today, care protocols must move away from efficient treatment towards automated and effective prevention of decubitus ulcers.